Maybe Hamilton should stop declaring he's as good as Senna or that he will visit Senna's grave or that he has anything to do with Senna. In fact, he should probably change the color of his helmet because every time Hamilton invokes him, the spirit of Ayrton seems to come down and deliver the cosmic bitchslap.
And maybe Kubica is the most deserving of winning the championship this year. Hamilton: he has the best car, he's a top tier talent, he's incredibly stupid. His move at the start was just that, stupid. That he even though he needed to make the move was stupid.
Curiously, nobody said much about how it is that he ended up behind Massa at the end of lap one. Lewirton Sennalton flew off the road a second time in one lap and only the miracle of paved runoff saved him.
Massa, he's fast, he's unlucky but a Schumacher would have realized Hamilton had flatspotted his tires to the chords and figured out a plan B. A fully avoidable and forseable penalty and like Hamilton at Spa, he claimed to have been pushed off the track. Still, everyone cheered!
As for the penalties, I would have given none, none for the start, none for the Hamilton-Massa incident and none for the Bourdais-Massa punt. One giant upshot would have been not to have to hear the moaning from Hamilton and the UK Motor Media for the next 200 years about it.
Again awesome Alonso. Renault gave him a car that was truly competitive with Mclaren and Ferrari....
Great battle between Kubica and Raikkonen but once again I say: F1 tires suck. To hear both drivers talk about their struggles with graining and how they each had only a two lap window of optimal tire performance and could do little once the tires went off was just sad. I hope slicks will prove more consistent next year.
Last year even hardcore Alonso fans (myself included) had to have a bit of niggling feeling that maybe he was a bit of a primadonna, but this year has shown me that among the top 6 fastest drivers, hammy, kimi, massa (?), kubica, vettel and alonso, fred has proven to be the most charming and exciting winner. He gave a huge fist pump and wave to each and every stand on his finish lap and gave his traditional pose on the front of his car (not as great as the preying mantis, but clearly improvised). Alonso is everything in a winner that kimi is not. Im thrilled to see him flog a now faster but still wild car to another win. As an American I really hoped Bourdais would represent American open wheeled racing well and I think he actually has done that fairly well, despite his poor luck and sometime inability to deal with his cars balance. Im sorry that it was him who forget the red cars had to win easily today to keep the WDC alive and so chose recklessly to actually race against massa. Will the FIA ever recognize the need for professional stewards? And as I mentioned in the livefeed post comments, the english certainly dont seem to love watching races as much as they love playing the victim in the days after a race.
ReplyDelete"As for the penalties, I would have given none, none for the start, none for the Hamilton-Massa incident and none for the Bourdais-Massa punt."
ReplyDeleteI agree completely ... but isn't there, as of a few years back, a rule that ANY incident (e.g. the Bourdais thing) must be investigated and penalized by the stewards?
Sort of like if there's an accident, the cops have to give out a ticket to someone, anyone.
In the current climate of Penalise first, think later, it's itneresting to see that hamilton completely left the track, on the bend prior to attacking Massa. You could say that he gained some advantage from leaving the track - his closing speed on Massa shows a massive speed differential. On the other hand, he lost a few places from leaving the track too.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the biggest shame is that Massa wasn't cool enough to let Hamilton run away on broken tyres...
Tony, it's interesting that you bring that up. I think that rule may have gone by the wayside to allow for simple "racing incidents" which makes sense, but in this case it seems the stewards were actually sort of following the premise of the rule you mention; if two cars collided in such an avoidable incident as the massa-bourdais collision someone must be at fault. The facts make it clear massa could have easily avoided the collision and probably could have easily passed the cold-tired seebass later, but bourdais could only have avoided the situation by simply jamming on the brakes well early and letting massa pass wherever he wanted on the track. Every single commentator I have read expected massa to be penalized when the review of the situation came up and only massa and the stewards believe bourdais was at fault. This is part of why massa is not considered a decent competitor, he won't ever consider another driver's point of view but only argue on his own behalf, even when wrong. If a well respected straight talker like webber had gained from this situation he would not admit he had unfairly gained a point, but he would also not argue that the penalty was deserved. Massa cannot help but insist he and ferrari are always 100% right, which, just like a lawyer makes him seem unreasonably partisan and dishonest.
ReplyDeleteI thought there was a good amount of "cosmic justice" to the incidents as they happened. Even Massa got spun. he made the same mistake Hamilton made... "...I'm Massa..Of course you'll move over!" except that was for position. If you look at the replay you can see why the stewards gave Bourdais the penalty, Massa was in on the corner first....but honestly Massa should have know better and this was a racing incident.
ReplyDeleteLet's start a petition..."BRING BACK THE RACING INCIDENT!"
ok so im a lewis supporter (but im welsh not english - dont confuse the two!) I love his story pre F1 and the way he won his GP2 title. So honestly, he did stuff up at T1, im not entirely sure it was a punishable offence but he did cause a few cars to drive off track to avoid collision so i cant complain about that too much.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that gets me is the massa penalty. forget about hamiltons eff up at T1 for a minute, if that hadn't of happened and they were genuinly fighting for position then surely massa deserves more than just a drive through seem as how it cost lewis a great deal more than 25 seconds?? in my eyes that punishment doesn't fit the crime.
Nothing really to add on the SB incident i agree that the stewards got it 100% wrong, in my opinion SB had the racing line even if FM was faster and got half a car infront of him. If he had just held position he would have been in a prime position to take the place at T2....
Anyway.... Bring on China!
so the axis would have given no penalties for one car running into another car but the axis agues vehemently that hamilton deserved a penalty for "gaining an advantage" due to bypassing a chicane. The axis confuses me just as much as the stewards.
ReplyDeleteYes, bring back the racing incident indeed.
ReplyDeleteI only peripherally follow the MotoGP, but you never see this sort of BS in their races.
I know, a lot of it has to do with the caution necessary when racing a bike, but still ...
When Hamilton got spun, my first thought was of Al Unser Jr. trying to muscle Fittipaldi at Indy, "You dork! Don't do that when you're on the OUTSIDE of the turn! How long have you been racing?"
The same thought crossed through my mind with the Massa/Bourdais deal.
There's a certain amount of physics driven natural selection that takes place in a race if the stewards aren't hovering over every corner like a frickin' etiquette coach.
If the only incident of the race had been the Massa/Hamilton deal, and it had gone untouched by The Authorities, my whole reaction probably wold have been one of,
"Well yeah, Lewis, it's unfair, kind of. He hit you. But what the hell were you doing putting yourself in that position in the first place? Where was Massa supposed to go? how much controllability dos an F1 car have on dirt & grass? That's right, not much. So next time, if you're gong to shove someone off the track, do it when you're on the INSIDE, and not the OUTSIDE of the corner."
Anonymous, no confusion. If Massa had turned left and cut the corner as Hamilton did at Spa then we would have had the same situation....
ReplyDeleteFerrari Assistance International strikes again, there's no small gain for Ferrari against poor SB who had the audacity to actually hold on to his line on the inside, what was he supposed to do? Drive off the track on the inside to let Masa pass??? BS...
ReplyDeleteHey, Anonymous is back! Good to see you again!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, given the fragility of F1 cars I don't think any driver ever has intent to make contact. That's why I'm more tempted to call contact a racing incident.
-Freep
So, Hamilton should have just driven into Massa at Spa thereby avoiding a penalty? The condemnation of that would have been even more deafening. Still confused...
ReplyDeleteOh good lord, I just read that Hamilton is accusing Massa of driving into him on purpose... Sorry there Lewirton Sennalton but you need to stop digging now and concentrate on driving smart.
ReplyDeletelink
BTW Anonymous... hey you know what, Hamilton got spun...Massa's suspension could have broken... HEy Ham has had enormous luck this year and Massa all the bad brakes.... luck changes sometime, cry me a river.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sitting around whining about the penalties, they could have skipped them, whatever. Result would have been essentially the same, in fact it would have worked out better for Hamilton.
Ham will not be champion again my friends, sorry ..
ReplyDeleteOScar
I've just nopticed how the race results have left Kubica in touching distance of threatening for the WDC too. IMO it could be his best chance to win it in the BMW, i just dont think they have what it takes to be a top team winning regular races. Massa and Lewis better screw their heads on for the last 2 races.
ReplyDeleteSorrento, yeah that's what I mentioned in the post...I think that would be an awesome result, I would love to see Kubica win, it would make a much better story than Hamilton win.... Bernie would be ecstatic .
ReplyDeleteI really don't give a sh*t about Hamilton, he just happens to be involved in 99% of the controversial incidents so we must talk about him. I don't bleed red, so by default I am considered to be a Hamilton "Fan Boy." I'm actually a Heidfeld fan, however, I haven't been too busy cheering this year. I actually enjoy seeing anyone other than McLaren and Ferrari win - it's good for the sport.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that the stewards SUCK!
Daily Telegraph:
ReplyDeleteOne thing he has absolutely denied, however, is a report – touted on some websites – that he'd claimed he was "better than Ayrton Senna", the triple F1 world champion who died after an accident during the 1994 San Marino GP.
Hamilton added: "I never said that – and I definitely wouldn't say it about Ayrton, because he's my favourite driver. I think he's the best driver of all time and, to this day, I still don't believe anyone would beat him. If I could achieve just a small part of what he achieved, it would be a dream for me." Axis: can't you just stop this nonsense Hamilton bashing it's starting to become annoying .....
Write your complaints to RTL German TV. Not exaclty a fly by ight operation who's complete text is in the post.
ReplyDeleteI guess next Hamilton will deny having a press release about going to visit Senna's grave in Brazil last year?...
He is correct though in that he did not say he was better, he said he's as good as....
ReplyDeleteWhy is it Hamilton can't admit his mistakes?
ReplyDeleteHe uses inane doubletalk - says he made a mistake, but that really he did nothing wrong. Well which is it?
Look at Drivers like DC and button; took them years of maturity to learn that you have to be objective about yourself because the public don't just hear what you want them to hear, they hear what you really believe. When those guys mess up, they say 'Hey, I messed up', because that's what people respect.